Stupid is as stupid does...I received a resume some years ago from someone claiming experience with an airline of which I'd never heard. Curious, I contacted the applicant directly to enquire. It was a "virtual airline," he said. I'd not heard of such a thing at the time, but was as it sounds: an imaginary airline that existed in virtual reality. He'd dress up in a pilot costume and get on his home computer at a scheduled time, as would someone else somewhere else in the country, and they'd "operate" a trip using some computer game software, as though they were actually flying a trip. He was logging the time.

He seemed shocked that I wouldn't accept that experience toward a job as a pilot. He had, after all, thousands of hours as a "virtual" airline pilot. No ATP, of course, but apparently a very nice costume and what he said was very realistic software.

There's always the Parker Pen crowd that logs time in airplanes that they see through the fence, and one might log paper airplane time. If I have enough time in freefall as a body-pilot, or under a parachute as a canopy-pilot, ought that not count? How about those falling-dreams, so long as one remembers to wake up? There's always logging time while driving, with an advanced-technology vehicle. That's one that uses GPS on a cell phone, to find the library, and of course, drives itself on autopilot.

A certain percentage of pilots have a lot of hours logged from...the bunk. Oddly, the logbooks don't break it down to bunk time, or even cite which one. At a minimum, that ought to be instrument conditions, once the light goes out...